I think you could make a pretty strong case for Duane Ludwig as coach of the year regardless of how Joseph Benavidez fares on Saturday night. What he’s done is not just groom one top fighter, but taken a whole team and made them significantly, noticeably better — and they were already pretty damn good. Earlier this week Cage Potato had an interesting statistical breakdown compiled by MMA numbers nerd Reed Kuhn (whose new book “Fightnomics” is out on Kindle), showing that Alpha Male fighters are now winning a greater percentage of their fights and finishing a greater percentage of their opponents than they were before Ludwig arrived. Even their takedown efficiency has improved, probably at least in part because their striking games have gone from perfunctory to downright scary with Ludwig’s help.

That’s not to say that Matt Hume doesn’t deserve his respect for what he’s done with Demetrious Johnson. And certainly, the usual suspects like Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn, the crew at American Top Tea, and Nova Unaio all have to be mentioned in the coach/camp of the year conversation. Still, I can’t think of one single person who has had a greater positive impact on a team as Ludwig has had on the Alpha Male guys this year. Nabbing a UFC championship this weekend would just be icing on the cake, which every Team Alpha Male fighter would get a slice of at the next snack time (sorry, couldn’t resist).

@benfowlkesMMA TUF 20 is basically a Women's Strawweight Tournament. Is this a good way of finding a new champ? #tmb

All things considered, yes. It gives the women’s 115-pounders a good introduction to the UFC, while also giving fans a reason to watch “The Ultimate Fighter” again. You could argue that the reality show tournament format doesn’t necessarily reward the absolute best fighter, and you’d have a point. It’s an artificial environment, with artificial demands and limits that can and probably will affect performances. It’s entirely possible to win a TUF season without being the best fighter on that season. It’s just that, when you’re trying to introduce an entirely new division, that’s not such a bad thing.

Imagine if the UFC crowned its first women’s strawweight champ via a totally normal, non-reality show tournament. The risk is that we wouldn’t ever get to know or care about the losers, and then who’s the champ supposed to fight after winning the whole thing? This way the UFC can create some drama, let us watch as friends become enemies and enemies become friends, all while giving a much-needed boost to the never-ending TUF franchise. It might not be the perfect solution, but it’s pretty damn good.

@benfowlkesMMA with details of the UFC's network emerging, do you think this is a good move in the long run for a) the ufc? b) the fans?

Let’s talk about the UFC’s “digital network,” which sounds like a fancy term for a website where you can pay to see fights that aren’t good enough for TV. This is the UFC adding yet another tier to its already multi-tiered platform, except it’s adding it at the very bottom and asking you to pay for it, which seems a little counterintuitive. How much it asks you to pay and what it’s willing to give back in return will determine whether it’s a good value or not, but right now I wouldn’t blame anyone for feeling like they’re not ready to hand over their credit card just to watch some dudes they’ve never heard of fight each other in a distant land at six o’clock in the morning.

Does that make it a bad move for the UFC? Not necessarily. Seems like the UFC wants a foot in these new markets so badly that it doesn’t much care whether anyone back home will want to see the fights, which, let’s be honest, will probably be of a lower quality than we’re used to from the world’s foremost MMA organization (where, it bears repeating, Ben Askren has not earned a shot, or so we’re told). If it’s bad for anyone, it’s the known fighters who will occasionally get stuck on these cards. You’ve got guys like Max Holloway and Tarec Saffiedine fighting in Singapore, and while they may not be superstars it does seem like they probably deserve to be seen. Will that happen once the UFC uses them to bolster its bold new way for fans to give it money? I guess we’ll see.

Personally, if you want to know what would make the UFC’s “digital network” worth my money, I’d say it’s all about archives and access. If my subscription means I get to watch any fight Zuffa owns the rights to, whether it’s from UFC 43 or the PRIDE 2004 Grand Prix, and I get to watch it all on demand, on the device of my choosing, then maybe I go for it. Maybe then these lowest-tier fights feel more like a bonus. Otherwise, seems like the UFC is simultaneously sending the message that the digital network stuff is nowhere near as good as the TV stuff, yet will cost us more to watch. Even MMA fans can only be squeezed so much.

@benfowlkesMMA The Ultimate Fighter season from China has a handsome yoga instructor who has never fought on any level of MMA. AYFKM UFC?

So you’re telling me that the “Ultimate Fighter” franchise, which is known for scraping the bottom of the dyed hair/wacky personality barrel even in its North American iterations, failed to come up with a field of experienced MMA vets in China, where people are waaaay more interested in gymnastics and table tennis than cage fighting? Wow. Shocking. I’m sitting here right now, totally shocked by this news.

Look, whether we’re talking about TUF China or “digital network” fights in Singapore, we’re going to have to start receiving the message that the UFC is sending us, which is that this stuff isn’t important. It’s not for us, and by us I mean MMA fans. It’s for people who have never heard of the sport, but might be convinced to check it out if there’s a handsome yoga instructor from their home province on there. If anything, the UFC would probably prefer we just totally forget about the inferior product it’s attaching its name to overseas. It’s like when American movie stars do bizarre commercials in Japan. It’s strictly for the yen, baby. If you never find out about it, great. If you do, and if you feel like they’ve tarnished their brand by doing it, well, they’ve still got the yen and you’ve got a short memory. Or so they hope.

Depending who you believe, Georges St-Pierre is either making a big announcement on Friday or cutting the ribbon on a Canadian Orange Julius. About the only thing we can be sure of is that if he does talk to the media, surely someone will ask if he’s retiring, at which point some words will likely come out of his mouth. I don’t see him quitting at a shopping mall ceremony, but even if he does I wouldn’t be the least bit upset. Let him enjoy his retirement, if that’s the way he wants it, and let us enjoy a four-man tournament featuring all those guys you just mentioned. And yes, in a perfect world the winner would be hoisting the belt just in time to have his special night ruined by the shocking return of Nick Diaz, who may or may not have been cleverly disguised as a cameraman the whole time.

@benfowlkesMMA Is a dominant win the worst thing for a fighter on the brink of retirement? Penn KO's Hughes then fades. Shogun? #TMB

Sometimes, yes, it does seem like the worst thing that can happen to an aging fighter is a big victory that keeps him from having to confront some hard questions late in his career. That’s the retirement paradox for a lot of pro fighters. Everyone wants to go out on a win, but once you win, hey, doesn’t that prove that you’ve still got plenty of fight left in you? Reborn in the game! And so it goes.

It’s like a gambling addict who, just when he’s on the verge of admitting he has a problem, wins a big hand of blackjack. Crisis averted! At least until, you know, the next hand. That’s why it seems like the thing to do is to play it like Randy Couture or, more recently, Julie Kedzie did. Decide that you’re going to retire before the fight, win or lose, and then keep that promise to yourself. Don’t let such an important decision hinge on a single punch or a singe judge. Otherwise you can always talk yourself into just one more fight, until you do it once too often.

Sure it’s worth it. Why not? Tim Kennedy is a tough middleweight coming off a huge knockout victory. He’s also got that whole American war hero thing going for him, which contrasts nicely with Michael Bisping’s cocky Brit routine (and by routine I mean way of life). It’s a fight the UFC could sell and one that would do a lot for either man’s case as a middleweight contender. I don’t see many good reasons not to make it. As you said, it’s dangerous for Bisping (and for Kennedy), but that’s kind of the point, right? If you’re looking for easy fights at 185 pounds, the UFC probably isn’t the place for you.

@benfowlkesMMA Terms like Gatekeepers and Never-Champions: while labels, are these fair summations of one's career? #tmb

I think they can be accurate without necessarily being fair. Some fighters are gatekeepers. And most never become champion. We’re not doing them a disservice by admitting that, and there’s a place for those fighters in the sport. At the same time, any time we look for one word or phrase to sum up someone’s entire career, no, it’s probably not going to feel totally fair, at least to them.

@benfowlkesMMA With all the recent focus on CTE and the satisfaction with the draw, why are folks so quick to want Hunt vs Silva II? #TMB

Obviously our collective concern with chronic traumatic encephalopathy and other forms of brain damage must not be too great, because we’re still fans of a sport where people get punched and kicked in the head as a matter of routine. While I get the point you’re trying to make here, I’m not sure we should start booking fights based on who is least likely to hurt one another. This is the hurt business. People are going to get hit in the head. It’s not about finding a way to remove that from the sport, but learning as much as we can about how the brain responds to that trauma and taking reasonable precautions to make sure people don’t take too much, too often. If you want a good reason not to book a rematch between Mark Hunt and Antonio Silva, just ask the fighters themselves. Neither of them seems eager to do it again, which is as good a reason as any to move on. As Hunt said when I asked him about it yesterday, “Why ruin a good thing?”

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie.com and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.

ALBANY, N.Y. – MMAjunkie is on scene and reporting live from today’s UFC Fight Night 102 event at Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y., which kicks off at 5:45 p.m. ET (2:45 p.m. PT). You can discuss the event here.

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